“Good! Because I think aunt Jenna could use some help kicking Shark's ass at arm wrestling. Do you think you could help her?”
Her head snapped to the side, and beautiful grin pulling at her lips as she looked at Jenna.
“Yeah?” I asked. “Let's go.”
I stood up and took her hand, leading her over to the small crowd.
“Are you good here?” I asked Bee, noticing that she was focused on the arm wrestling contest. Shark and Jenna were battling it out, and it looked like she was winning.
“Why don’t you cheer for Jenna?” I encouraged, nodding my head at them. Bee remained where she was, her eyes wide. After a moment’s pause, she walked away from me and over to Jenna’s side, putting her hand over Jenna’s, helping her push Shark’s over.
“Yes, Bee!” Jenna whooped. “You’ve fucked it now, old man,” she laughed at Shark.
He grinned back and made a big deal out of struggling to hold his arm up, eventually letting it flop to the table with a dramatic bang. “You’re a pair of cheats,” he said with mock anger, wagging his finger at his old lady and Bee.
“Strength in numbers, isn’t that right, my angel?” Jenna replied, pulling Bee onto her knee. “Who’s next? Who dares take on the two of us?” she called out.
“I’ll give it a go,” Doc said, grabbing one of the beers from the table. He tipped it to his lips and then spat it out, his face growing red.
“Who the fuck put hot sauce over the bottles?” He growled, throwing it to the ground.
Without hesitation, the majority of us pointed our fingers in Vienna’s direction.
“What?” he shouted back. “I get the blame for everything around here.”
“But did you do it, though?” I called back.
“Yes,” he grinned and then ran as Doc gave chase. He grabbed one of the club whores and used her body as a shield, dropping her onto a bar stool before sliding under the pool table and out the other side.
Bee giggled, watching Doc hobble along after him as Vienna started prancing around, performing ballerina moves. He twirled his way over to us, smacked me in the face with his ridiculous fucking beard, and picked Bee up from Jenna’s knee.
“Come on, super lady. You’re my armour.”
He carried her in one arm, and grabbed a bunch of hotdog buns with the other, handing a few to Bee. He whispered something in her ear, and together they started throwing them in Doc’s direction.
“Madness,” I muttered to myself, shaking my head.
I looked around at the chaos and took a long, content sigh.
Despite myself, I really did fucking love it here.
Chapter 48
Dante
“I’m telling you, Dante! Those were her exact fucking words!” Rachel hissed at me.
I closed my eyes, forcing myself to count to ten before I reacted. And then I counted to ten again, because once wasn’t enough to calm the fury that roared through my veins.
The BBQ had ended abruptly when Pivot burnt all the sausages and Sunshine almost had a coronary over a “fucking prospect interfering.” After convincing them that fight club didn’t need to happen, we had all begun to disperse, not wanting the celebration for Bee to turn into one of our usual rowdy parties.
“They sing burn songs at her, Dante. They call her a fucking freak!”
Rachel had just finished telling me the story of Bee’s bullies, and I had never felt so fucking livid in my entire life.
“I’m going to school tomorrow, and I’m going to deal with it.”
“The school is fucking useless,” I snapped, getting to my feet. “I’ll deal with it now. What’s their names?”
